Optimizing AirFlow in a small case, lots of pics!

Ok, im my quest to cool down my lil Aria, i had to do a bit more work than i thought but in the end it was all worth it, temps dropped over 10 degrees C, idle temps are 35c, load with prime95 is around 46-47.

With the help of some hole saws, a jigsaw, and a dremel, i was able to fit a 120mm fan on the left side of the case to bring down temps, on the the right side i was able to stick a 80mm fan to blow directly at the GPU. On top i cut a vent for the cpu cooler to draw air from as well as the for the psu to take in some cooler air.

Finished product:


Heres an 80mm Panalflo L1A fan with mesh filter feeding air directly to the video card:

I got a fan vibration dampener on the Panaflo too. From the pic you can see that air will feed into the card cooler fan but is slightly offset, so if i change out cards or coolers, the fan will still blow right on the gpu itself:

Poor Yate Loon fan, in order to get it to fit in the case i had to do some trimming so that it wouldnt interfere wtih the ram and zalman cooler:

Also had to use the dremel to cut off part of the hard drive/optical drive cage to make the 120mm fan fit. The extra bracket i cut off was for an optional hard drive and was useless. Ran into another problem as my fan mount was a lil crooked, so i had to shave off part of the frame on the upper left to make the fan fit:


i noticed that the psu has vents on the top and sides, but the panels were solid, so it wasnt able to pull in any cool air. I was already gonna cut a top vent (between psu and optical drive), but then decided to cut a 120mm hole to accomdate the vent on the psu. So now the Zalman gets some cool outside air and the psu gets some too:



Lastly, i cut out the intergrated card reader (since it was dead) to provide better airflow in the case. Im happy with my results. The 120mm Yate Loon is freakin bright, and its the low speed version, its quieter than my 120mm regular black Yate Loon. It thought by sticking a mess filter on the fan it would help, but the leds just shine through it ahhahha.

Looks pretty nice

Looks great!

thanks guys, its not too flashy, but it works really well. Its quieter than before, looks nicer IMO, much cooler temps wise. I got all my parts from PTS and they were the ones that actually gave me the threaded rod idea for the 80mm fan since my drilling was a bit off and i couldnt screw the fan in directly. The threaded rod was smaller in diameter and worked perfectly for me. This case had absolutely no airflow before, but since its getting a lil old, i wanted to run it cooler so i can overclock the processor.

well i am not really a fan of SFF cases but yours looks great!... nice 120mm mod

will you let me borrow your holesaw??

i've been working on a case and have a few 120mm fan holes i need to make but those holesaws are so damn expensive... guess i might just have to buy one

thanks man, but all my tools were borrowed from friends....cutting through aluminum/plastic/aluminum panels sucked, i had to go real slow, and backwards. But yeah, for my next case, if i have to cut another 120mm hole, im definitely going to buy one, its worth the 20 bucks. People have used dremels to cut holes, but the hole saw is so much easier.

Nice job on the case. What kind of improvement did you get in temps ?

Nice mods, I heard the Aria runs pretty hot, good job on cooling it.

the 120mm fan dropped my temps 10c for idle and load. With the Zalman cnps7000b, i was running about 55c on load with the fan at full speed. Now, with the Yateloon led fan, im hitting 45-46 load runnin prime 95 for an hour. It appears that the 80mm on the video card side helps keep the video card cooler, but does not appear to have much of any effect on the internal temps inside the case. I figured the top vent would help the zalman grab some cooler air and help the psu pull in some cooler air also (psu has vents on the sides and top), but im not too sure what does does for internal pressure (at least it looks cool though )

I really like the design of the aria, but the case really has no airflow at all; plus the fact that i have an oced 9800pro in there didnt help temps. The 120mm mod took me some time since i had to shave off parts of the fan and parts of the hard drive cage, but it was definitely worth it. Overall, i think its not too flashy and maintains the classy look of the aria. If you cut out the card reader, i think this case would be an easy case to watercool, maybe that will be my next project once i get more money.

Cool...any improvement is a good improvement with SFF cases.

Looks really good. You used the same filters I use

Have you considered getting a lower profile fan for the top vent? Or is there not enough room?

nice job, its hard with those small cases, but you made it look so nice!

theres actually no space for a fan at all on the top vent, the top cover sits right on top of the optical drive/ psu. From the pics, theres only that small lil gap between optical drive and psu where only a 40-60mm fan would fit, but since the top cover slides, theres no way to put any fan on there. Putting my hand again the top filter, i can feel the HSF pulling some air, so i know the mod is somewhat working

btw, the filters werent as restrictive as i thought, and as you can tell from the first pic, leds shine right through em!